External drives when accessing internal drives on my MacBook Pro

[MamaMoose]

I have three external drives, two of which contain backups to My MacBook Pro's main OS  (10.4.10) via SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. When I access a file or an app on my internal drive, sometimes one or two of my external drives will spin up slowing the access considerably. My question is why are the external drives being accessed as I am accessing software  only on my internal drive?


Since, I have my laptop's lid closed all the time (using an external cinema Display), I cannot hear its drive spinning up when I try to access it. Is it possible that even though I am accessing my external drive, the file or apps on the backup drive(s) are being accessed instead. In any case, any change I make to a file does appear on the internal drive.
One clue is when I boot into the SuperDuper!-backed up drive and try to run DiskWarrior on internal drive OS, I get an error message: "DW cannot unmount the internal drive, as  there are components of  the internal drive that are open. Perhaps SuperDuper! when it backs up still maintains  links to the principal drive!!!

Anybody have any clues as to what the problem might be?

Thanks,

MamaMoose

[rongold]

I had the same problem at one point in early versions of 10.4. The problem was not unique to SuperDuper! It occurred with all cloning programs I tried. Disk Utility also failed to unmount the internal hard drive when I tried to Repair Volume while booted from clone on external hard drive. The problem disappeared at some point during the upgrading of Tiger and now no longer occurs with OS X 10.4.11. I can't remember which upgrade of OS X 10.4. fixed the problem.

The only suggesiton Dave Nanian (SuperDuper! developer) had was to make sure the internal drive and clones on external drive had same names. This did not solve the problem for me.

I suggest to upgrade to 10.4.11.

[Paddy]

Tom, I've had that happen too (the external drives showing some activity for no apparent reason) - I don't know why it happens and I've usually just ignored it. One of them is busily ticking away right now - haven't the foggiest idea what it's doing! They seem to have a life of their own at times. Both are clones of an internal drive - each has its own name. I don't want to name them all the same - how would I be able to tell them apart?? Especially as one is a weekly backup and the other a daily one!

Anyway, after some searching, I did find Dave Nanian's response regarding the naming of the clones - you don't have to name them the same, though at the time of actually starting up from a backup volume, it's a good idea (aliases etc. resolve correctly). More explanation here.

Still can't find anything about disk activity for no discernible reason on the clones.

Actually, the really weird thing is that I just realized that the drive that is being Mr. Busy right now is the FW one, which ISN'T set to do backups at the moment because its drive is now too small to do a full backup. I think I'll eject it and turn it off for now.

Gremlins...

[MamaMoose]

Thanks all for your comments. I do have OS 10.4.11. Also, as I pinted out in my post, DiskWarrior cannot unmount the internal drive (it must do so to work) because it claims ther are still parts of the system on the internal drive that are active even though I booted into a backup OS that is on a diffewrent HD.

ˆtalked to DiskWarrior people about this problrm and they said SuperDuper! indeed somehow when it clones has some sort of connection to the clonee! Therefore, DW cannot unmount the clonee even if you are booted into the clone.

My solution is to boot using the DW 4.2 disk then everything works. It's just a pain to wait until the DW CD boots - can take 5 to 10 minutes!

MamaMoose

[rongold]

I have no difficulty booting from external clone (made by SuperDuper!) and then running Disk Warrior to check internal hard drive on G4 iMac, G4 macMini, or Core 2 Duo Macbook. The problem of some unidentifiable file on internal hard drive being accessed by the external clone and thereby preventing unmounting of the internal hard drive disappeared with OS X 10.4.11, at least for me. With newest version of SuperDuper!, I have no problems running Disk Warrior when booted from cloned external hard drive.

[krissel]

Hmm, I could have sworn I read recently an article/thread that advocated making sure drives all had different names.

As to the drive activity, couldn't it be Spotlight indexing?

[MamaMoose]

krissel,

ypu may be right. I never use spotlight so how can I turn it off?

Thanks,

MamaMoose

[Paddy]

Ah, Spotlight - that's probably why those drives seem to have a life of their own!

You can disable it in the Terminal if you wish:

http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/22/how-to-comp...able-spotlight/

Lots more info about disabling it partially or completely here:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20061109235901299

I find it quite useful though, so I'll just continue to ignore Mr. Busy.

[Xairbusdriver]

Spotlight was nearly useless in Tiger, many have reported it is much better in Leopard. I will admit that it is much faster in Leopard but that's not always "better" if it still won't show results in all of ones disk.

However, it is easy to keep it from indexing external drives and/or specific folders my using its Preference Panel. Just drag an item into the list in the "Privacy" tab. No terminal needed, even in Tiger, AFAIK.

Of course, in Leopard, we also have Time Machine starting up external drives if that's where you told it to put its back ups.

[MamaMoose]

Thanks ABD. I just dragged all my external volumes into SpotLights Privacy window. They were accepted so now we will see if my problem goes away.

MamaMoose